Country Icon Dolly Parton Invested 'I Will Always Love You' Royalties in Black Neighborhood

Make no mistake. “I Will Always Love You” was written by Dolly Parton, but it is, always and forever will be Whitney Houston’s song.

Courtesy RCA Records 

The country music legend admitted as much in a 2020 interview with Oprah Winfrey,

“I was shot so full of adrenaline and energy, I had to pull off, because I was afraid that I would wreck, so I pulled over quick as I could to listen to that whole song,” Parton recounted to Winfrey hearing Houston’s version on the radio for the first time. “I could not believe how she did that. I mean, how beautiful it was that my little song had turned into that, so that was a major, major thing.”

So, it’s only fitting that the queen of country music, honored one of the leading ladies of soul by investing profits from the massive hit – Houston’s cover for the 1992 film The Bodyguard, which she also starred in alongside Kevin Costner, earned Parton $10 million in royalties in the 1990s alone according to Forbes — into the black community. 

During an appearance Thursday on Bravo’s Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen the 75-year-old icon revealed she had invested the money from her songwriting credit in a building in a historically Black Nashville neighborhood when asked, "What is the best thing that you bought or invested in with money from your 'I Will Always Love You' royalties?"

“I bought my big office complex down in Nashville, and so, I thought, well, this is a wonderful place to be. I bought a property down in what was the Black area of town, and it was mostly just Black families and people that lived around there. And it was just off the beaten path from 16th Avenue. And I thought, well, I am gonna buy this place," she replied, adding. "It was a whole strip mall. And I thought, this is the perfect place for me to be, considering it was Whitney. And so, I just thought this was great. I'm just gonna be down here with her people, who are my people as well. And so, I just love the fact that I spent that money on a complex, and I think, this is the house that Whitney built!"

The revelation should come as no surprise for fans of the 10-time Grammy winner, who has come out in support of Black Lives Matter in recent years and has a reputation for charity and being unproblematic that dates back decades.

Still, it’s a nice gesture and fitting tribute for Houston who died tragically in 2012 at the age of 48, accidentally drowning in her hotel bathtub.

Parton, who wrote the song in 1972 on the same day she wrote "Jolene," another one of her major hits, saw her version reach No. 1 on the Billboard’s country charts twice (1974, 1982) also said she would have loved to perform the hit with Houston during the interview but she had no illusions as to whose voice would stand out on that duet.

“I would've loved that, but I don't think I could come up to snuff with her though. She would've outsung me on that one for sure," she said. 

Posthumous Release 'Welcome 2 America' Reportedly a Return to Funky Form for Prince

 

It's 76 degrees in Minneapolis today, but for fans of Minnesota's favorite son, it might as well be Christmas.

That's because for the first time since his untimely death five years ago, His Royal Badness — The Purple One — Prince Rogers Nelson has new music out. 

"Welcome 2 America," recorded in 2010 with the New Power Generation, is the first posthumous album mined from the legendary vault of recorded music left behind by the artist, and early reviews say it's a return to funky form to a music legend whose final releases before his death had not fared well.

Rolling Stone declared the release "funkier, sexier,  superflyier" than most of his latter-day music, giving it 3.5 out of 4 stars. The Chicago Sun-Times declared the album a triumph, and The Guardian seemed gobsmacked by the new tracks, declaring it his best albums of the last two decades and in a 4 (out of 5) star assessment. 

Fans wanting to judge for themselves where the new album stands in the Prince lexicon can find it on Apple Music where, in a release from the company, they are invited to "listen live for free as Apple Music Hits takes you through Prince’s Welcome 2 America release, his treasure trove of classics on Apple Music, and so much more."

Vanilla Ice Tries to fill Sir Mix-a-Lot's Hat, Fails Miserably

 

Sir Mix-a-Lot

What in the name of Anthony L. Ray is going on in America? People can’t pay their rent, regular people are beefing about masks like the Bloods and Crips used to go at it over territory, and for reasons unknown to this scribe — the Bar-S Foods Company just dropped a “Baby Got Back” parody video. 

Ok, so I do know a little something and of course a lot of the problems in the country today are pandemic related, but that doesn’t explain why the good people at Bar-S would waste what I assume to be at the least thousands of dollars transforming one of the premier club bangers of the early nineties into, well, a backyard barbecue anthem.

“Baby Got Buns,” you see what they did there, isn’t offensive because it changes an iconic ode to the female derriere and defying the rigid structure of what society has labeled as necessary to make a woman beautiful to embrace the natural diversity of women’s sizes and shapes — into a ditty about grilling. OK, maybe it is, but the fact that Vanilla Ice is the frontman for this foodie atrocity pushes it into the realm of a tier-1 culture violation.

How are you going to put out a “Baby Got Back" parody without the involvement of the aforementioned Ray, a true knight of American hip-hop better known as Sir Mix-a-Lot? The Iceman has plenty of hits rife with potential for parody. Sometimes, it seems like his rap career was one of more melinated artists with less mass appeal in order to sell millions of records, but I ain’t one to gossip so you didn’t hear it from me. Still, I would be lying if I said I never got hype when I used to hear the cymbals at the start of “Ice Ice Baby” and dust off my imaginary mic to spit in sync. 

That said you can’t take the biggest hit from the Bard of Butts and expect the guy who did “Ninja Rap” to do it justice. The fact that Bar-S tried had me embroiled in a frantic google search after I first saw the video. For a minute, I was scared Mix-a-Lot was amongst the fallen and his musical legacy up for sale. Thankfully, I was pleased to see that not only he is alive and touring, but he is fighting to keep Seattle music venues open through the pandemic — with his own money.

After I took a breath, I realized that “Baby Got Buns” may not be art and Rob Van Winkle could never fill Mix-a-Lot’s iconic hat, but if two rap legends can find a way to still get paid 30 years into the game – Mix wrote his hit and I’m assuming the Bar-S people had to pay a nice fee to use it, music wins.

Watch the full video for “Baby Got Buns” below and decide for yourself, “But at what cost?”